Trains That Passed in the Night

Winston Link was a young practitioner of an old photographic tradition, one still much used, but which now commands little public notice. He developed a strong personal style within the technique of using cameras that were usually fixed in place, mounted on heavy tripods and using large negatives, typically 4 x 5 inches in size. The dynamic qualities of photographs made this way came through their careful planning: the precise placement of the camera, and equally careful placement of the lighting sources, with people and objects also being arranged with an eye for the final effect. Photographs using this technique were (and still are) made by the millions for advertising and illustrative purposes. While this manner of photography is still widely used, we have come more often to think of photographic truth through another aesthetic, one created by photographers using small hand held cameras. Sometimes described by the generic term street photography, photographers who work in this way usually move rapidly and invisibly through their surroundings, making images using only the light available and leaving the environment untouched and unchanged. Not only did Winston Link use a different photographic technique, his motivations were different from street photographers. His interest, in all his work, was to create as precise and careful a record as possible of the scene being photographed. Using lessons he learned from his commercial advertising photography, Link had less interest in documenting life as he found it than in creating images of life as he (or his clients) might wish it to be. Thus in his railroad photos, Link built a record that not only documented the locomotives and trains themselves, but emphasized the benefits of the railroad to the life of the communities through which it passed. He was, in his way, preparing and executing an advertising campaign for the American Steam Railroad, and the good life in the United States which it supported. In many of his photographs, the passing train is incidental to the activity in the foreground, be it buying groceries, taking a swim or herding cows. Yet, even in the background, the steam railroad was still the essential element which stitched together Winston Link\u27s personal vision of this good life in America

Trains That Passed in the Night

Winston Link was a young practitioner of an old photographic tradition, one still much used, but which now commands little public notice. He developed a strong personal style within the technique of using cameras that were usually fixed in place, mounted on heavy tripods and using large negatives, typically 4 x 5 inches in size. The dynamic qualities of photographs made this way came through their careful planning: the precise placement of the camera, and equally careful placement of the lighting sources, with people and objects also being arranged with an eye for the final effect. Photographs using this technique were (and still are) made by the millions for advertising and illustrative purposes. While this manner of photography is still widely used, we have come more often to think of photographic truth through another aesthetic, one created by photographers using small hand held cameras. Sometimes described by the generic term street photography, photographers who work in this way usually move rapidly and invisibly through their surroundings, making images using only the light available and leaving the environment untouched and unchanged. Not only did Winston Link use a different photographic technique, his motivations were different from street photographers. His interest, in all his work, was to create as precise and careful a record as possible of the scene being photographed. Using lessons he learned from his commercial advertising photography, Link had less interest in documenting life as he found it than in creating images of life as he (or his clients) might wish it to be. Thus in his railroad photos, Link built a record that not only documented the locomotives and trains themselves, but emphasized the benefits of the railroad to the life of the communities through which it passed. He was, in his way, preparing and executing an advertising campaign for the American Steam Railroad, and the good life in the United States which it supported. In many of his photographs, the passing train is incidental to the activity in the foreground, be it buying groceries, taking a swim or herding cows. Yet, even in the background, the steam railroad was still the essential element which stitched together Winston Link\u27s personal vision of this good life in America

The Impact of Visual Style on User Experience in Games

The visual style in a game is an aspect of user experience that is often neglected in user experience studies in games. Visual style is often reflective of the tone that a game designer intends to convey or the assumption of what the intended audience would prefer, and it is an important aspect of how a player experiences a game. This thesis investigated how visual style impacts user experience, by observing user experience from two different approaches, moment and memory-based experiences (engagement and enjoyment), through the manipulation of style in a game. The manipulated aspects of visual style were color and form. While the impact of color and form on experience is inconclusive, visual preference by a player does appear to be indicative of whether or not a player will be engaged and enjoy an experience. In order to properly control any unknown variables, the demo being used for this study was made by the researcher, providing the flexibility to manipulate the style as necessary

Counting linear extensions of posets with determinants of hook lengths

We introduce a class of posets, which includes both ribbon posets (skew shapes) and $d$-complete posets, such that their number of linear extensions is given by a determinant of a matrix whose entries are products of hook lengths. We also give $q$-analogues of this determinantal formula in terms of the major index and inversion statistics. As applications, we give families of tree posets whose numbers of linear extensions are given by generalizations of Euler numbers, we draw relations to Naruse-Okada's positive formulas for the number of linear extensions of skew $d$-complete posets, and we give polynomiality results analogous to those of descent polynomials by Diaz-L\'opez, Harris, Insko, Omar, and Sagan

Raising Preservice Teachers' Efficacy with ELs Through Service-Learning

This dissertation investigated the effects of service-learning with English learners (ELs) on preservice teachers’ efficacy. Preservice teachers often report having low self-efficacy for teaching ELs. This low self-efficacy could be related to a lack of cultural competence and understanding of second language acquisition. Service-learning with ELs may be able to raise their efficacy. This study asks: (1) if service-learning significantly improves preservice teachers’ efficacy with ELs, (2) if EL learning sites significantly differ in developing efficacy during service-learning, and (3) how do different types of service-learning settings differ from each other in the ways they impact preservice teachers’ self-efficacy with English learners? Two hundred participants served in three types of EL settings: PreK-12, intensive English program, and community adult ESL. They each served for a period of eight to ten hours. Participants completed pre and post surveys measuring their levels of efficacy for working with ELs, and wrote field reflections describing their experiences. Survey results indicated that while all locations increased their efficacy, there was an interaction effect between participants’ initial levels of efficacy and the type of setting they served in. Participants beginning with low or moderate levels of efficacy benefitted most from working in adult EL settings, while participants beginning with high levels of efficacy benefitted most from working in more academic settings. Analysis of field reflections indicated variation in how settings helped participants to develop efficacy with ELs. Adult EL settings, particularly the intensive English program, offered greater possibilities for understanding the second language acquisition process and building cultural competence, while child EL settings gave more opportunities to preservice teachers to see how to work with ELs in their future professional environment. Teacher education programs can help preservice teachers to increase their efficacy for working with ELs, by first assessing their current levels of efficacy, and then assigning them to the setting appropriate for their developmental needs. Preservice teachers with low levels of efficacy may benefit more by first serving h adult ELs to build up their cultural competence and understanding of language learning, before transitioning to work with children in more academically oriented settings

The Niemann-Pick C1 and caveolin-1 proteins interact to modulate efflux of low density lipoprotein-derived cholesterol from late endocytic compartments

The Niemann-Pick C1 (NPC1) protein has a central role in regulating the efflux of lipoprotein-derived cholesterol from late endosomes/lysosomes and transport to other cellular compartments. Since the NPC1 protein has been shown to regulate the transport of cholesterol to cellular compartments enriched with the ubiquitous cholesterol-binding and transport protein caveolin-1, the present study was performed to determine whether the NPC1 and caveolin-1 proteins interact and function to modulate efflux of low density lipoprotein (LDL)-derived cholesterol from endocytic compartments. To perform these studies, normal human fibroblasts were grown in media with lipoprotein-deficient serum (LPDS) or media with LPDS supplemented with purified human LDL. The results indicated reciprocal co-immunoprecipitation and partial co-localization of the NPC1 and caveolin-1 proteins that was decreased when fibroblasts were grown in media with LDL. Consistent with interaction of the NPC1 and caveolin-1 proteins, a highly conserved caveolin-binding motif was identified within a cytoplasmic loop located adjacent to the sterol-sensing domain (SSD) of the NPC1 protein. To examine the functional relevance of this interaction, fibroblasts were transfected with caveolin-1 siRNA and found to accumulate increased amounts of LDL-derived cholesterol within late endosomes/lysosomes. Together, this report presents novel results demonstrating that the NPC1 and caveolin-1 proteins interact to modulate efflux of LDL-derived cholesterol from late endocytic compartments

New Discoveries from the Arecibo 327 MHz Drift Pulsar Survey Radio Transient Search

We present Clusterrank, a new algorithm for identifying dispersed astrophysical pulses. Such pulses are commonly detected from Galactic pulsars and rotating radio transients (RRATs), which are neutron stars with sporadic radio emission. More recently, isolated, highly dispersed pulses dubbed fast radio bursts (FRBs) have been identified as the potential signature of an extragalactic cataclysmic radio source distinct from pulsars and RRATs. Clusterrank helped us discover 14 pulsars and 8 RRATs in data from the Arecibo 327 MHz Drift Pulsar Survey (AO327). The new RRATs have DMs in the range $23.5 - 86.6$ pc cm$^{-3}$ and periods in the range $0.172 - 3.901$ s. The new pulsars have DMs in the range $23.6 - 133.3$ pc cm$^{-3}$ and periods in the range $1.249 - 5.012$ s, and include two nullers and a mode-switching object. We estimate an upper limit on the all-sky FRB rate of $10^5$ day$^{-1}$ for bursts with a width of 10 ms and flux density $\gtrsim 83$ mJy. The DMs of all new discoveries are consistent with a Galactic origin. In comparing statistics of the new RRATs with sources from the RRATalog, we find that both sets are drawn from the same period distribution. In contrast, we find that the period distribution of the new pulsars is different from the period distributions of canonical pulsars in the ATNF catalog or pulsars found in AO327 data by a periodicity search. This indicates that Clusterrank is a powerful complement to periodicity searches and uncovers a subset of the pulsar population that has so far been underrepresented in survey results and therefore in Galactic pulsar population models.Comment: 41 pages, 16 figures, 4 tables, accepted by ApJ; added minor corrections to final ApJ proo

Evaluating Novel Methods of Classifying Interlimb Asymmetries Within Collegiate American Football Players

International Journal of Exercise Science 15(6): 473-487, 2022. Over the last few years, researchers and sport scientists have expressed an increased interest in the effects of interlimb asymmetry on aspects of sport performance such as jumping, sprinting, and changing direction. This study aimed to evaluate the diagnostic utility of three different means of classifying asymmetry to highlight if a 6-week resistance training intervention can meaningfully reduce levels of asymmetry, and to determine the relation between asymmetry reduction and improvements in change of direction (CoD) performance, if any. Eighteen, division-two collegiate American football skill position players completed all pre- and post-intervention procedures. These procedures involved the completion of the Bulgarian Split Squat (BSS) exercise from which asymmetries in relative average power (Rel.AP), and relative peak power (Rel.PP) were derived. Additionally, participants completed three repetitions within the 505 and L-drill tests to quantify CoD performance. Results from our study show that participants classified as asymmetrical, exhibiting observed asymmetry in Rel.PP scores larger than the sample mean plus one standard deviation, had the greatest likelihood of reducing asymmetry (OR = 6.99, 95% CI: 1.4, 12.5) and improving L-drill performance (OR = 1.33, 95% CI: -2.1, 4.8). Further, our training intervention meaningfully reduced Rel.AP asymmetry (p = 0.027, Cohen’s d = 0.73). At the group level, these reductions in asymmetry were accompanied by improvements in L-drill performance that were larger than the sample smallest worthwhile change (SWC). At the individual level, however, change scores in asymmetry and change scores in CoD performance only showed small, non-significant correlations